Greyson
Munich. The night I’d never forget. Zach had drifted to sleep and I was still restless. Twenty-four hours and we’d deploy. It was everything we’d worked for, and yet our future felt like a base jump—leaping, just hoping the flimsy parachute wouldn’t snag.
“Where are you going, man?” Zach sounded groggy and disoriented.
“Out. I just need some air. Don’t worry. I’ll be on the train in the morning.”
“I’m not worried. I could set a clock by you.” He yawned, rolled over, and I stepped out of our hotel room.
The lobby was quiet. I nodded at the desk clerk and pushed the glass door open into the crisp German spring night air. I wandered the darkened streets for a while, letting my thoughts run free, breathing deeply as if this were my last night on earth. Light occasionally spilled onto the streets from windows of still-open shops.
Blocks later, I didn’t know how much time had passed or which direction I had come from. I looked up. Without a plan or thought, I had walked to Frauenkirche, Munich’siconic cathedral. I stared up at the twin onion-domed towers. I was so lost in my own head, I almost missed her.
But then she spoke. “Excuse me. Do you speak English?”
I peered through the darkness and saw her petite frame, full brown hair and that smile, cautious, but warm.
“I do. Can I help you?” I asked her, gentling my voice so she’d know I meant no harm.
“Yes. Oh, thank God. I thought I was going to have to try out my German on you. It’s grauenhaft. That’s a word I do know. It means horrible.”
“I know,” I told her. “I’m fluent.”
I didn’t tell her I had also learned enough Dari to get by in Afghanistan.
She looked me over from head to toe and simply said, “Of course you are.”
It’s still the best compliment anyone has ever given me—something about the way she looked at me when she said it made her words burrow deep inside me, like I was the kind of man who spoke several languages. Of course, I was.
“You needed something?” I asked her after a long beat of us staring at one another in a way that should have felt awkward or intrusive.
“Oh. Yes. I’m trying to find my way back to the hostel where I’m staying. I was in a cafe and lost track of time.”
“What’s the name of your hostel?” I asked her.
“That’s just the thing. I arrived yesterday. I remember the name of the one in Berlin. This one starts with an H … or was it an I? Maybe it was HI?”
I chuckled. She laughed. We stared at one another again.
“Are you turning in for the night?” I asked her.
She looked up at me through her lashes and said, “I don’t have to.”
In a move so utterly uncharacteristic of me, I said, “Don’t then.”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Ace,” I said, giving her the name I’d been called all through basic and EMT training. I still don’t know why I didn’t tell her I was Greyson. Maybe I wasn’t anymore. I couldn’t tell who I was that night. I was the guy who asked beautiful strange young women to stay out late in a town that shut most of its lights off at eleven.
I needed the night to last.
One more night before everything changed for good.
One more night before I took the leap.
And she was just the girl to spend that night with.
I don’t know how I knew it, or why she ended up in front of that cathedral, but it was her. I knew that much.
